[MD] kill all intellectual patterns

[david buchanan]

Mark said to dmb:

As far as I understand it, killing all intellectual patterns is a suggestion for those who get stuck in the minutiae of MoQ and do not address the big picture which is Quality.  It may be good advice for some.


dmb says:
Quality is already the center of the big picture and is central to all the details of the MOQ. This is what I keep trying to explain, over and over again.

The problem, Pirsig says, is that "Reason and Quality had become separated and in conflict with each other" back in the days of Plato. Plato had made Quality subordinate to reason, to truth. The MOQ's solution is to reverse that priority.

"Reason was to be subordinate, logically, to Quality."

That's how Pirsig puts it in ZAMM but then you see this same solution in Lila. The MOQ's pragmatic truth maintains that reversed priority so that truth is within Quality and subordinate to Quality.

"That was exactly what is meant by the Metaphysics of Quality. Truth is a static intellectual pattern within a larger entity called Quality."

The MOQ is a set of static intellectual patterns with Quality at its center. The various attempts to dismiss reason, intellect, metaphysics or otherwise undermine an intelligent discussion of the MOQ only serves to show a basic lack of understanding. What sense does it make to kill all intellectual patterns in this situation? None. It makes no sense at all. A philosophical discussion group that discourages thought and speech? It's absurd. It's daft.